Cost Plus expected to complete move late this year

Home decor company Cost Plus World Market announced last week that it signed a lease with Brookfield Property Partners for 107,000 square feet of office space at 1201 Marina Village Parkway. 

Cost Plus has been searching for new digs for its headquarters after it learned that Carmel Partners purchased the property where its headquarters currently sit at property bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Madison and Jackson streets just south of Interstate 880 in Oakland. Carmel Properties has plans in the works to build an apartment building on the site. 

To sweeten the deal for Cost Plus, Brookfield will include a 25,000-square-foot mock retail display store at the site to show off the Cost Plus product line. The company has been in Oakland since 1998. The move, which is scheduled for completion in the fall, will bring 400 jobs to Alameda. 

Brookfield purchased the Marina Village office complex in May 2014 from Legacy Partners. The complex comprises 30 one- to five-story buildings at 1001 to 1300 Marina Village Parkway. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Legacy had purchased the complex from Vintage Properties in 2006 for $191 million. 

Joseph Seiger and Michael Humphreys founded Vintage Properties in 1973. The pair built the Marina Village complex on land Bethlehem Steel had occupied from 1916 to 1948. Tynan Avenue, which leads into the parking lot at Cost Plus’ new home recalls Joseph T. Tynan, Bethlehem Steel’s shipbuilding general manager.  

Cost Plus traces its history to 1958 San Francisco, when William Amthor opened his first store at Fisherman’s Wharf. Amthor was already in business selling rattan furniture in San Francisco when he opened a 4,000-square-foot warehouse at the popular wharf. 

The store was so successful that Amthor began importing other merchandise, including wicker by the shipload. According to its website, Cost Plus now has more than 250 stores in 30 states.